The present invention relates to an antistress composition containing various medical herbs as effective ingredients that relieve stress and repress memory failure.
Particularly, the present invention relates to an antistress composition containing mixture which is composed of one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of fructus hordei germintus, messa medicata fermentata, fructus amomi and fructus crataegei; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of radix polygalae, semen zizyphi spinosae and rhizoma acori graminei; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of poria holen and poria; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of folium phyllostachys, calus in taein phyllostachys, succus phyllostachys and radix scutellariae; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of germinated Glycine max (L.) Merr, fructus amomicardamomi, semen glycine and semen lablab; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of rhizoma zingiberis, radix asari, rhizoma zingiberis siccatum and radix aconiti; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of bulbos allii fistulosi, herba ephedrae and folium perillae; and one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of red pepper and radix platycodi as the effective ingredients.
The antistress composition of the present invention is so effective for stress relief and memory failure repression that they can be useful for preventing and treating stress and memory failure. The composition can be also used in a form of health food.
Generally, overloaded stimulus may result in injury to a living body. At this time, the living body exposed to the overloaded stimulus shows a general adaptive syndrome as a reaction to a certain threat irrelevant to the kind of stimulus, and this phenomena has been defined as a stress (Selye, H: The stress of life, Toronto, Longnans Green and Co., pp.1-50, 1958).
This reaction is represented as the various phenomena in the body, which develop strain headache, migraine, hypertension, dyspepsia, fatigue, pain, climacteric suffering, hair growing and rough skin. If these phenomena continue chronically, neuropathy and stomach ulcer are caused and physiological activity and immune response are reduced. It also threatens the health considerably since the breakage of homeostasis in the body weakens resistance, and then causes other disease. In addition, it shrinks psychological activity and induces abnormal behavior because of instable emotion. Particularly, the stress is raised as a very important problem since it is excessively occurred in the modern society.
The stress which is called as the root of modern diseases is induced by various causes:
1) Physical factorxe2x80x94overexertion, lack of sleep, external wound, addiction, etc.
2) External factorxe2x80x94natural environment, cultural state, human relationship in the home or in the office, etc.
3) Internal factorxe2x80x94personality, mental conflict in the real life, mental injury in the childhood, etc.
The effect of this stress to the human body is so various that it induces nervousness, headache, hypertension, etc, and the continued stress decreases the function of the body such that it may cause other secondary diseases. As the above-mentioned, the cause of the stress is various according to the method which inflicts injury to the body, but it is commonly said that all the following reactions are mediated by accelerating the function of HPA, sympathetic nervous system, which induces hormone secretion. These reactions can be summarized as follows. Adrenal gland which is stimulated by adrenal corticotropic hormone increases its weight and decreases the lipid, and the spleen considerably decreases its weight because of the decline of immune function. On the other hand, adrenal gland increases cholesterol, blood sugar, alkaline phosphatase(ALP), lactate dehydrogenase(LDH), aspartate aminotransferase(AST or GOT), alanine aminotransferase(ALT or GPT) by secreting other steroid hormone and induces the decrease of neutral lipid in case of serious state. These variations in the living body are reported as the middle step of external symptoms which are above-mentioned. Therefore, to prevent or cure the stress, it is desirable to recover diverse physiological variations in the human body occurred by the stress.
The variations which are induced by the stress are very diverse and if these states are continued, it becomes the root of many diseases. So it is urgently necessary to relieve the stress. However, only the physical treatment methods like sports, sleeping and relaxation have been suggested. The methods which stimulate recovery of physiological variations induced by the stress have been poorly suggested. Therefore, development of the medicine which has the preventive and curing effect to the stress has been demanded.
As part of these researches, antistress agents containing cholic acids have been developed (Korea patent No.95-6225). The antistress agents include cholic acids which are widely used as a solubilizing agent of gallstone. Since the antistress agents have the activity of choleretic function, liver detoxification, improvement of liver blood stream, stimulating function of lipid absorption and waste excretion through fine biliary duct, they are marketed as the gallstone solubilizer. They also contain ursodeoxycholic acid which has the effects of liver function improvement in chronic liver disease, general malaise by the liver function disturbance, dyspepsia, anorexia and body fatigue; tauroursodeoxycholic acid effective for liver lipid treatment (JP No.4-235918) which is reported to improve liver function and decrease the amount of liver lipid by oral administration; chenodeoxycholic acid and dehydrocholic acid that are on sale as solubilizing agents of gallstone.
However, the antistress compositions have been proved to be effective only for weight increase of adrenal gland and shrink of spleen, and has the repressive effects for ascorbic acid content variation of adrenal gland and blood biochemical variation which are general symptoms induced by the stress. So it is not mentioned at all about the effect which represses or recovers memory failure induced by the stress.
Moreover, various forms of medicines principally made from ginseng, Eucommiaceae ulmoides, brekman that are reported to be useful for the stress as amedicinal herb or a folk remedy, are developed (Korea patent No.96-8230). The nutrition tonic containing ginseng as a principal ingredient is widely marketed, and the nutrition tonic containing Eucommiaceae ulmoides as a principal ingredient is marketed. In addition, the nutrition tonic comprised of various compounds like honey, vitamin and the like is marketed. However, though it is reported that the medicinal herbs like ginseng, brek-hman(Pharmacological investigation of glycosides from Gingseng and Eleutherococcus, Loydia, Vol.32, No.1, pp.46-51, 1969), ocimum sanctum Linn, tinosporamalabarica(Sen, P., Maiti, PC and Ray, A. Mechanism of anti-stress activity of Linn, eugenol and in experimental animals, Indian J. Exp. Biol., 30, 592-596, 1992) and biological materials. like melatonin have the antistress function, they have the effect. to the only small part of diverse variations which are induced by the stress or have a little effect. In addition, they have no unique characteristic in the point of using the medicinal herb extracts which have been used as traditional oriental material and generally, they have only the purpose using the nutrition tonic or commonly known effect.
Therefore, it is asked for the development of desirable antistress agents which have the repressive effects to the various symptoms induced by the stress.
As a result of much effort to develop new antistress agents which have excellent effect and have not been used in combination so far, the present inventors have developed an antistress composition containing fructus hordei germintus, radix polygalae, poria holen, folium phyllostachys, germinated Glycine max (L.) Merr, rhizoma zingiberis, bulbus allii fistulosi and red pepper as effective ingredients, and verified that the antistress composition had wide and excellent effect on the prevention and cure of stress and memory failure.
It is an object of this invention to provide an antistress composition containing various medicinal herbs as effective ingredients to relieve stress and memory failure.
It is another object of this invention to provide an antistress composition containing mixture composed of fructus hordei germintus, radix polygalae, poria holen, folium phyllostachys, germinated Glycine max (L.) Merr, rhizoma zingiberis, bulbus allii fistulosi and red pepper which have the effects on relief of stress and repression of memory failure induced by excessive stress.
In accordance with the present invention, the foregoing objects and advantages are readily accomplished by the provision of an antistress composition containing mixture which is composed of one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of fructus hordei germintus, messa medicata fermentata, fructus amomi and fructus crataegei; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of radix polygalae, semen zizyphi spinosae and rhizoma acori graminei; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of poria holen and poria; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of folium phyllostachys, calus in taein phyllo-stachos, succus phyllostachys and radix scutell-ariae; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of germinated Glycine max (L.) Merr, rhizoma zingiberis, fructus amomicardamomi, semen glycine and semen lablab; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of rhizoma zingiberis, radix asari, rhizoma zingiberis siccatum and radix aconiti; one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of bulbos allii fistulosi, herba ephedrae and folium perillae; and one or more medicinal herbs 2.0-40.0 g selected from the group consisting of red pepper and radix platycodi as the effective components.
This invention also provides a pharmaceutical composition containing the antistress compositions as the effective ingredients which has preventive and curing effects on the stress.
In addition, the present invention provides health food containing the antistress agent as an effective ingredient which has preventive and curing effects on the stress.